Embrace Your Quirks: Proven Psychologist Techniques for Mental Wellness

“Am I mentally healthy?” This is a question that everyone asks themselves at some point in their lives. We all know what mental illnesses are, and there has been a lot said about depression and panic attacks. However, there is a difference between “not being ill” and “being healthy.” As Oleg Selitsky, a psychologist at the Minsk City Clinical Center for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, explains, “The question of mental hygiene is always relevant.” He shares insights on what mental health is, how to maintain it, and how to understand if everything is okay with us.

Understanding Mental Health

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines mental health as a state of well-being in which an individual realizes their own abilities. If you are satisfied with your condition, then you are healthy. No one can tell you that you are sick if you do not feel it yourself.

Even if we are healthy now, the question of mental hygiene is always relevant. There are many paths to health, and we use many methods daily, from simple rest to unusual ritual dances and facial tattoos. However, to achieve a lasting effect, we need a system. Sigmund Freud, a classic psychologist, can help us create this system. In one of his works, he noted that the human psyche is in the nervous tissues, which he compared to other body tissues, such as muscles. Therefore, everything that applies to muscles also applies to nerves and, consequently, to the psyche.

Listening to Your Body

Let’s listen to our bodies and muscles. What is pleasant for them? Only calmness? No. An immobile arm or leg needs to stretch. Exercise is even more beneficial for muscles. What happens to our muscles during exercise? They tense up. Similarly, mental health requires a balance of tension and relaxation. This does not mean that you should subject yourself to constant stress. The key here is balance, and proper relaxation plays a huge role.

The Art of Relaxation

In ancient India, it was noticed that one cannot be angry and physically relaxed at the same time. Therefore, the simplest and most understandable method to maintain psychological calmness is relaxation. Let’s get acquainted with a simple but very effective technique for relieving tension.

Step 1: Relax Your Muscles

Get comfortable and relax. While sitting or lying down, try not to bend your arms at the elbows or your legs at the knees. Then close your eyes. Consciously, but without much effort, relax different muscle groups. Simply pay attention to different parts of your body and gradually release the muscle tension.

You will find that you can relax to some extent. For example, you can stop frowning and smooth out the skin on your forehead. You can smile because smiling requires fewer facial muscles than a serious expression. You can easily relax your feet, legs, abdomen, arms, back, and shoulders. Spend about 5 minutes on this and then stop paying attention to your muscles. This is where your conscious actions should end. Now, let’s engage our imagination.

Step 2: Engage Your Imagination

Imagine that your legs are getting heavier, filling with the weight of concrete and pressing into the mattress. The same happens with your arms and neck. Someone close to you enters the room and tries to lift your leg but cannot handle the weight.

Then, imagine that you are a large marionette doll. Your knees, shoulders, neck, elbows, and wrists are connected by strings. The strings that supported your movements have loosened, and you lie limp and relaxed.

Now, imagine yourself in a pleasant place. Each of us has had a moment in the past when we felt especially light, pleasant, and in harmony with the universe. Mentally return to that moment, recall all the details, your state, perhaps a little sleepy or calmly serene. Recall the sounds: the rustling of leaves, the crackling of a fire, the splashing of water. Stay in that moment for a while.

Daily practice of such relaxation will help you better master the technique of relieving tension.

Training Your Psyche

To better understand how we lose our mental health, let’s recall how an atomic bomb works. There is a radioactive element, plutonium, which has enormous potential energy, and a little explosive. But if you simply explode the explosive near the radioactive element, nothing will happen. The reaction will not start.

For the atomic explosion to occur, the bomb’s components must be sealed in a strong capsule so that the explosion’s pressure triggers the atomic reaction inside. The same happens with anxiety or fear. As long as it is controlled and confined within the psyche, it intensifies. This means that a small release of mental energy is much more useful than constant isolation.

The example of muscles and the atomic bomb will help us understand the exercises created based on the tension mechanism.

Psychological Aikido: Achieving Calmness

Psychological aikido is when we encounter a problem, we do not defend ourselves, resist, or hide, but achieve calmness through confrontation with that problem.

For example, you have a fear of closed elevators or office meetings. Such fears hide in the semi-conscious probability that the elevator will get stuck, or you will be fired from work. According to the rules of aikido, this anxiety should be amplified and directed at yourself.

First Technique: “And What Next?”

You need to ask yourself, “And what next?”.

“The elevator will get stuck, and I will have to sit there.” — “And what next?”.

“No one will come to help, and I will have to sit there for three hours” — “And what next?”.

“No one will come to help, and I will stay there for a day” — “And what next?”.

“I will live there for a whole week” — “And what next?”.

“I will settle there for a month. And if I came from the store, then not just one month!”

This consideration of consequences allows emotional steam to escape, which otherwise could accumulate and lead to psychological problems. Moreover, when we bring the situation to absurdity, we use one of the most powerful techniques in psychology – laughter.

Second Technique: Gratitude to Your Anxiety

As is known, nothing in the body hurts for no reason. Every pain and discomfort has a cause. Similarly, anxiety, fear, or depression has a cause. The obvious benefit of anxiety is warning about a specific danger. Therefore, we can start by thanking the anxiety or our subconscious for trying to save us from a possible bad future. Such gratitude brings harmony to a person’s inner world, while allowing the possibility to think about fear and release tension.

Third Technique: Combine the Techniques

These techniques can be combined. If your depression is chronic and long-lasting, a more complex version of these exercises will be useful. You can periodically induce an extremely anxious or sad state in yourself, bringing yourself to the maximum of fear. Daily and regularly training your thinking to face anxious thoughts, not hiding them in the subconscious, from where they cause depression, neurosis, and strange behavior.

Fourth Technique: Allow Yourself to Be Strange

However, strange behavior can be healing in itself. Let’s take a look at those who are massively in a difficult adaptive situation – teenagers. They are supposed to live in the adult world but do not have the experience or money to feel comfortable.